Both Tetra 9 Private Lounge & Garden and Cheba Hut's East Colfax Avenue location held special events on 4/20. The Denver Police Department looks for such events on local calendars, and before the high holiday, both the DPD and the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses reminded 4/20 event organizers of laws against public pot consumption. In order to enforce those laws, the DPD sends undercover officers to various events — and Denver officials believe that both Tetra 9 and Cheba Hut failed the test.
Although both locations are known for their love of cannabis — Tetra 9 is a private cannabis lounge, and Cheba Hut is a weed-friendly sandwich shop know for the pot puns on its menu — the DPD citations issued to the businesses might have very different outcomes. As a restaurant with a liquor license, Cheba Hut could face harsher consequences than Tetra 9, which operates under more ambiguity as a members-only club.
Excise and Licenses communications director Eric Escudero confirms that his department is reviewing Cheba Hut's liquor license "for potential administrative actions as a result of marijuana public consumption violations documented on April 20," but can't comment on potential action against Tetra 9. Rob Corry, lawyer for Tetra 9 owner Dwayne Benjamin, confirms that the club was cited for 4/20 activities, but says the club is back up and running.
Tetra 9 opened in February as a private cannabis club.
Courtesy of Tetra 9 Private Lounge and Garden
Cheba Hut did not promote on-site pot use in advertisements for its 4/20 event, but it was still targeted by the DPD. Although certified security people were checking IDs at the door, according to owner David Timmons, undercover officers had made it to the back patio, where approximately six people started smoking pot. The officers quickly detained those smoking, he adds, and uniformed officers arrived shortly thereafter to issue public-consumption citations to the "tourists" and complicity citations to Timmons and his bar manager.
Timmons sounds more irritated with out-of-staters who don't understand Colorado's cannabis law than he does with the police. "That's a tough gig," he says. "They were just out there out doing their job, so we aren't upset, by any means. When I saw those IDs on the table, I didn't see any from Colorado. A lot of out-of-towners don't understand the laws here."
The event resumed after the citations were written, and despite looming "administrative actions" by Excise and Licenses, Timmons says he's confident that Cheba Hut's punishment won't be too tough. "I've never had any problems with the law. That location hasn't had any issues, either, so I don't expect anything to be harsh," he says, but he admits that he's "not sure what the consequences will be with our liquor license."
And in addition to potential liquor-license ramifications, Timmons is also facing that complicity citation, for allegedly allowing the consumption violations.
Both Corry and Timmons point out that seventy-plus citations were issued during the Mile High 420 Festival at Civic Center Park, a city-owned property. Timmons wonders why he was given a complicity citation when no one from the city was: What makes the Civic Center event different?
Corry won't confirm whether his client also received a complicity citation, but he says he thinks it's an "interesting" direction for the city to take.
"Arguably, the City and County of Denver is in a gigantic federal law violation if that's the direction they want to go in," he explains. "If it's complicity for what the people do, then Denver is quite in complicity of violation of the U.S. code."
